A Hollow Throne
by EscapismReigns
Summary: Daenerys Targaryen takes the Iron Throne sooner than anyone could have anticipated, and the game is changed forever. A certain purple-eyed bastard wandering the Red Keep certainly doesn't help matters, either. Everyone is aged up around two years, the Daynes are 100% in on it, and (almost) everyone gets a happy ending. AU told through non-linear ficlets.
1. A Dragon Arrives Early

There is little resistance.

Not after she burns the Lannisters and the Baratheons alive with dragonfire. Not after she herds the North and its would-be King back to a destroyed castle with a hundred thousand Dothraki screamers. And certainly not when the Martells and the Tyrells defect from their own petty schemes to join her, bowing so low that their heads touch the razed ground beneath them.

Really, they should all be grateful. She stops what they were calling the War of the Five Kings in its tracks. Now there are no more Kings, only their rightful Queen.

To show her mercy, she keeps one Lannister and one Baratheon alive. The little man with the sharp eyes, and the scarred girl from Dragonstone.

She doesn't count the two Lannister bastards, not when the rest of the realm apparently doesn't either. The boy she sent to the Night's Watch after his uncle pleaded and begged, and the other is a meek little thing married to the youngest Dornish Prince. She really should kill them all and leave no chance of another rebellion – except for that Dany was once a meek, downtrodden thing underneath the boot of a tyrant, too, so she can't kill any of them, because they are her. She just hopes she won't regret it.

And so in the year of 299 AC, many years before anyone expects her, Daenerys Targaryen takes the Iron Throne.

* * *

The sun is straining through stained glass, illuminating the dragons skulls now restored to their proper place. The entire hall is resplendent in black and red, the Targaryen sigil adorning every highborn present much in the same way a slave collar would.

Representatives from every house in the realm stand before her, bow before her. She cannot match every face to a house or a name yet, but she will.

The day feels like the gods ordained it themselves, not that she really believes in them. Her whole life, her whole purpose has been leading up to this point. She has sacrificed so much of herself and of others to restore her family's legacy.

Dany marches up, her ancestor's crown pulling painfully on her hair and her strange new boots singing on the narrow metal stairs, and sits with the weight of a three-hundred year old dynasty.

And feels wrenching disappointment.

She thought once it would be different. Dreamed it would be different than any of the other thrones before it. But it doesn't. It just makes her feel cold and uncomfortable.

Dany tries not to let her heartbreak show.

* * *

Things go surprisingly smoothly in the moons after her coronation. The Red Keep stops feeling like a graveyard and more like a home, although she will always miss the sensation of racing bareback on a Dothraki horse amongst the grasslands, wind whipping through her hair. And the feeling of belonging.

Always that.

But Dany grows to know the people of King's Landing and of Westeros.

Like, for example, she learns the son of the Usurper's Dead Dog married someone that he shouldn't have, and that his mother lost her life for it, and that the cowering red-headed girl in her court is his only surviving sibling. Dany tells herself that she sends the girl back to Winterfell out of pure irritation, not pity.

Like how the tall woman with the yellow hair and broken nose can't decide if she hates Dany for killing Jaime Lannister, or loves her for avenging Renly Baratheon's murder. (Dany doesn't tell her she would have happily burned Renly as well). The tall woman still serves as a knight in Dany's court, though, and Dany has never seen her bloodriders so impressed with anyone.

She grows to like the traitors, even if she'll never trust them. Jorah tells her she shouldn't, but he is a traitor too so she doesn't care. Besides, she likes the Spider's sarcasm and the little Lannister makes wildly inappropriate jokes. So despite the fact that Tyrion Lannister's father killed her brother's wife, her niece and nephew, and despite the fact that she killed almost his entire family, they get along just fine.

A year into Dany's reign and she is more lonely than ever. It's a dull ache in her chest, a lifelessness in her eyes she knows worries Barristan and Missandei. But how can she feel any different when her children return to King's Landing so rarely? The seas hold their attention now, though she doesn't think she will ever have the heart to lock them up so she can keep them close to her.

It is probably for the best. There are less screaming people this way.

It all changes on the feast day of the Mother. Highborns from all Seven Kingdoms have gathered in the gardens of the Great Sept to celebrate. Never in her life has she seen something so decadent – it's all Arbour wine in golden goblets and golden dresses and bejewelled necks, dotted amongst the infinite gardens, soaring music, and colourful tents.

Underneath the vivid purple of the jacaranda tree, she watches it all from a makeshift throne.

Dany is being commandeered by Tyrells at the moment. She suspects it is because Olenna Tyrell is at the table behind her, staring down anyone who dared to have the nerve to approach. She snorts in quiet humour.

Its then that she catches a glimpse. Just a flash. She jolts forward in her seat, watching the finely cut figure in a black tunic stride back into the masses. A figure with purple eyes and a horrifyingly familiar face.

"Who is that?" She demands of the Tyrell girl.

Margaery giggles. Dany is almost sure that the laugh is entirely fake. "That is Jon Dayne," Margaery says. "The naturalised bastard of Ashara Dayne and Brandon Stark, although he was raised in Winterfell with his uncle, the former Lord Stark. He is rather easy on the eyes, is he not?" She peers at Dany, as if in surprise that she has shown interest in _anyone_.

Dany gives her a look. "That isn't why I asked."

"Why then?"

"I asked," Dany replied distractedly, still searching the crowd, "Because he looks like my brother, Viserys. If my brother had ever dyed his hair, I suppose."

She turns back in time to see Margaery frown, and glance over at her grandmother, who isn't even pretending anymore to not be eavesdropping. Dany assesses the old woman, and the sly glint to her eyes.

"But you already knew that. Didn't you, Lady Olenna?"

Olenna Tyrell held her gaze. "I suspected. Many of us did. But we kept our mouths shut. It would not do to cross the Daynes and the Starks lightly, at least at the time."

"Then tell me, Queen of Thorns. Why do _you_ think a Stark bastard looks like a Targaryen?"

Olenna purses her lips. "I would remind you, girly, that I was alive before you were a mad twinkle in your father's eye."

Dany says nothing, and waits. Eventually the old woman harrumphs. Dany resists smiling. She has won this round.

"Fine."

The Tyrell women tell Dany everything, and suddenly she doesn't feel so alone anymore. Hope swells in her breast.

She'll never have to feel alone again.

* * *

In the summer she weds Jon in a grand and lavish affair that stretches a week. The streets of King's Landing stomp and echo well past the hour of the wolf, and Dany can hear the laughter from her rooms. For a while, anyway, before a devious kiss to her collarbone brings her back to bed.

She justifies her marriage to a former bastard to the Small Council, dressing it up as a peacemaking union between the Targaryen factions and the remnants of the Rebellion. She even makes it sound convincing, and they all act as if she wasn't lying through her teeth.

All in all, the highborns are all suspiciously silent on the matter. But then, it is an open secret by now who fathered Jon Dayne, and Westeros receives all the confirmation it needs when Dany lavishes House Dayne and the newly-reunited scions of House Stark with all the lands and titles they would ever desire, and makes Jon the Prince of Dragonstone.

Jon for one never asks for the truth about his birth, although she knows he has heard the rumours. He is happy in their little facade of ignorance, and it is all they need.

Of course, there is still the occasional conspiracy or assassination plot. Dany is just lucky that her advisors are wily, because her husband certainly isn't. She loves him and his obliviousness anyway. Her dragons return to her more now, and she doesn't think she has ever smiled so much as when Jon took to the air for the first time. Beside her, where he belongs always.

And she is happy – a strange and uncomfortable emotion.

* * *

Within a few years there is a war, unlike any war she has ever fought before.

(But that is a story whose ending had already been told, long before Dany was ever born).

The sun rises again in Westeros, and the dry, frozen seas melt, and Jon returns to her whole.

And just like she had once been told, Dany's barren womb quickens. She stops after four children. After all, she reasons, the dragon only needs three heads. Six should be more than enough. Like some witchcraft, though, they find a clutch of four dragon eggs underneath Dragonstone after Dany's last child is born.

Jon swears loud enough that Dany dissolves into helpless laughter, and he sulks at her for a whole afternoon.

Her second-born daughter inherits her father's dark curls and her grandmother's grey, grey eyes. She calls her Lyanna, and she and Jon pretend that she is not their favourite. Lyanna marries Arianne's son for love of all things, and finally – finally – the Starks and the Targaryens and the Martells can all put their parents' mistakes to rest.

Dany goes down in the tomes of Westerosi history as Queen Daenerys Targaryen I, the Conqueror Come Again, the Mother of Dragons, and half a dozen other names besides.

She tries not to be too smug about it. At least where Jon can see.

* * *

A/N: I'll probably get around to making this a drabble series eventually.


	2. One More Wolf at Starfall

He did something wrong.

It's the only conclusion he could draw. Now he knows three things for certain. He is ten years old, he is a bastard, and he's done something wrong to make his Uncle Ned hate him.

Lady Stark hates him too. But Jon has always known that, although no one has ever told him why.

(When he is a few years older, he realises that maybe if he hadn't been born the bastard of a dead heir, maybe if he hadn't been a constant reminder of the man she was meant to marry, then Catelyn Stark would have liked him better.)

But now his uncle hates him, too. Jon can feel his gut wrenching. Why else would his uncle be delivering him to another lord? Another lord on the other side of Westeros no less, where Theon tells him gleefully it will be hot and dusty and the Dornish will smell like goats.

As time passes, Jon becomes sure he will never see his family again. Lady Stark will make sure of that.

But his Uncle Ned tells him that Lord Dayne of Starfall is his uncle, too, and that Jon will have an aunt and a cousin there to play with. So Jon has whole other family and another home, apparently.

"But _why_ are you sending me away? What have I done wrong?" Jon asks desperately, the moment after he is first told.

Ned frowns, and in a moment leans down to plant a hard kiss on his forehead. "Nothing, Jon. You have done nothing wrong. You have to trust this is for the best."

"But why?"

His uncle is silent for a long time. "It is your mother's family. Lady Ashara Dayne's family. You will be happy," he finally responds, not meeting Jon's eyes.

It doesn't answer Jon's question, but also in a way it does. Something warm and beautiful blooms in his chest, and suddenly the idea of Starfall doesn't seem so bad.

Maybe his Dayne aunt will love him more than Lady Stark does. Maybe she will even show him a portrait of his lady mother.

Robb and Sansa don't like the swift change one bit, though. They demand to come with Jon on the journey, and when they are denied they scream and cry and stomp about the castle like tiny summer storms. Little Arya is still too young to fully understand, but she cries too just so she isn't left out.

Finally, Uncle Ned relents, pleading mercy for his poor head.

Only for Robb though. Sansa is too young and impressionable, Lady Stark says in that cold way of hers, looking down at Jon as if he were a bug beneath her boot.

"At least," Sansa tells him after she finishes sulking, her chubby cheeks red, "The Daynes will have purple eyes like yours. You will fit right in, like dragon knights from the stories. Or Ser Arthur Dayne!"

She has always made Jon play the dragon princes and kings and knights, either that or his famous ancestors, and he runs around pretending sticks are legendary greatswords. Jon finds he doesn't really mind all that much. He knows Lady Stark would like it much better if Sansa didn't talk to him at all, so he takes what he can get.

"If I don't melt first because of the heat," Jon tells her, honestly concerned.

Sansa giggles. "Of course you won't, stupid. Dragons don't melt."

* * *

The goodbye hurts. Theon claps him on the back almost kindly. Baby Bran stares at him with wide eyes, and Arya still doesn't understand he is going away forever.

"But when you get back you'll teach me the bow, right?" She asks hopefully, her eyes lighting up. Jon doesn't have the heart to tell her, and instead pours all his love into his embrace. "Right," he replies, lying through his teeth.

He hopes to all the gods, Old and New, that she remembers him.

Sansa knows, though. She is crying harder than Jon has ever seen her, and she runs stumbling into Jon's arms in spite of Lady Stark's horrified gasp. "No matter how far you go," she grumbles in his ear, "We will always be your favourite family, and you will always be Northern. Remember that, stupid."

Jon grins. "Yes, your Grace."

When he comes to Catelyn Stark, he just nods. "Thank you for your many kindnesses, Lady Stark." He thinks she knows it's a barb rather than actual gratitude, but still she wishes him a safe journey.

He wonders if tonight she'll celebrate.

* * *

Starfall seems impossibly far away.

The journey takes close to two months, first on the Kingsroad and then the Roseroad. Jon gets saddle sores on his saddle sores. He tries to cover up his pain, but Robb whines about his sores as well until Uncle Ned tells Jory to buy a sturdy wagon.

Robb whispers he only did it for Jon. Jon snorts at that, but is secretly too glad to openly call Robb a liar. He's seen Robb when they wash – Jon's cousin has more sores than even Jon. Soon they'll both have arses of stone.

They bypass King's Landing completely. Jon doesn't think anything of it until he hears Jory question why Uncle Ned doesn't want to reunite with his old friend, King Robert.

Uncle Ned looks at Jon, and mutters something about stopping on the way back.

* * *

They cannot avoid Highgarden, though, however much Jon suspects Uncle Ned, Jory, and the guards wish to. They need to pass it to get to Horn Hill, and from Horn Hill to the River Torrentine, and from there to the island on which Starfall sits.

But they only have to stay for a night in Highgarden, Jon consoles himself.

"We were once on opposite sides of a war," Uncle Ned informs them abruptly as they enter the gates, sounding much too rehearsed to be casual. "Now we need to make amends, and show our respect and courtesies."

The boys gripe and moan. "We don't want any stinking Southron courtesies," Robb mutters, "We're Northerners!"

Uncle Ned cuffs him on the back of his head, and Jon smirks at his cousin. "At least I'm not stupid enough to say it aloud," he whispers to his cousin, and then receives a cuff too, much to Robb's satisfaction.

The feast is as gaudy and extravagant as Jon and Robb have been lead to believe all things in the South are. There are other children there, but Robb and Jon decide they are too snobbish to bother, and so keep to their own – much more interesting – company.

There is an old, wrinkled woman in a wimple that keeps staring and staring at Jon like he is the most fascinating person in the whole of Westeros. Surely old ladies have better things to do. Jon waits until Uncle Ned isn't watching, and then pokes his tongue out at her.

She laughs at that, and slips him a boiled sweet after the feast. Jon decides he likes her.

All the same, he is glad to leave Highgarden.

* * *

The horn announcing their arrival at Horn Hill is – unsurprisingly – ear-shattering.

There is a fat boy. Robb and Jon don't even realise he is there until Uncle Ned encourages them to play together.

"They're so similar," is the first thing Samwell Tarly says to them, glancing hurriedly between his father and Jon's uncle.

Robb looks like he doesn't know if he should be offended or not. Jon is, though. His quiet Uncle Ned, his kind and generous Uncle Ned, is nothing like the hard-eyed, tight-lipped Lord Randyll Tarly.

Jon is prepared to dislike Samwell from then on, but they still take him out to the training yard.

Jon never forgets Robb's helpless expression when the other boy drops the first sword he is given in a matter of moments. Robb seems so utterly confused that Jon laughs until tears gather in the corner of his eyes and his sides ache. Robb curses and pushes Jon over into the dirt of the training yard, which only makes him laugh harder. Finally Robb laughs along with him, like he always does.

But then Jon sees Samwell's downcast eyes, and realises the he thinks Jon and Robb are laughing at him.

Jon straightens up, guilt roiling in his gut. He slaps Samwell lightly on the shoulder (Sam still flinches), and grins, "Robb is a terrible teacher. Try again, keep your guard higher, and you'll be slaying grumpkins and snarks in no time at all."

Hesitant brown eyes peer up, distrustful as if Jon is about to bite him. "Really, I mean it," Jon encourages, waving a hand over at Robb, "He is dumb as a doorknob. Couldn't teach a bird how to fly."

"Shut it, Snow." Robb is grinning as he says it.

At the end of their practice, Jon realises that his uncle and Lord Tarly are watching them. Jon and Robb are led away by Uncle Ned, an arm over each of their shoulders. Jon glances back to see Lord Tarly say something to Sam, something that makes his shoulders slump.

Jon sets his jaw, and is outraged all over again that anyone could ever mix up his uncle and _that_ man.

* * *

They take a rough-edged boat at the western mouth of the Torrentine, one that doles out splinters like they were sweets at a harvest festival. Jon spends a whole day green and retching as they pass the Red Moutains, gritting his teeth at Robb's jeers, "You're going to be living on an _island_ in the middle of a huge _river _and you can't even hold on to your breakfast!"

"Do you think Lady Stark would mind if I pushed him overboard?" He asks Jory, eyes narrowed on his cousin.

Jory smirks and Jon can almost hear the unspoken reply: _She would probably wonder why you haven't done it sooner, bastard._

* * *

Starfall is a strange place, and the people there are stranger still.

He thinks he maybe would have been more fearful, in those first moments of entering the looming castle of sandstone and red ochre tiles, if Robb hadn't nearly scared the wits out of him by shouting, "When you become the Sword of the Morning, you should let me hold Dawn!"

Jon blinks at his cousin, and he feels his shoulders relax. "No, but I might give it to Arya, though."

Robb scoffs. "Don't be stupid."

He meets his new family after that. It's a small one. There is his uncle, Lord Aron, and his son, Edric, who is quiet and shy at six namedays, yet gravitates around Jon from the moment he meets him. Jon has never felt so utterly flattered.

There is also his aunt, Lady Allyria. Jon decides she must be the rudest person in the world. The reason for that is simple - she refuses to come out during the week that his uncle and Robb stay.

"Let her be," Lord Aron says one night, as if reading Jon's thoughts. "She has her own worries."

* * *

The week comes to an end too quickly.

The morning they are supposed to leave Jon behind, Robb takes out a dagger he has stolen from Jory, and slices his palm with a wince. He holds the blade out for Jon to do the same, and Jon obeys.

They hold their hands together like that for a long while. "You aren't my cousin, Snow. You're my brother. You're _our _brother – me and Sansa and Arya and Baby Bran...Maybe not Theon, though," Robb adds as an afterthought.

Jon can't help it. He cries. "Tell Sansa I won't forget, so she better not either."

Robb smiles. "I will."

It's stranger still with Jon's uncle. He seems guilty, and embraces Jon tightly almost to the point of smothering him. "I made a promise to keep you safe. And I am still keeping that promise," Uncle Ned murmurs, as if reassuring himself. "You will always have a home at Winterfell."

Except, Jon wants to point out, he doesn't. That is the whole point.

It is only when the Stark party leaves that Allyria emerges. At first he is surprised; she is only a year or two older than Jon at the most. Jon reflects later that she must have the queerest eyes he has ever seen – not quite purple, not quite grey. It is the same extraordinary colour of a fading dusk, with night rapidly creeping in.

He also can't help but wonder that with eyes like those centred in masses of dark curls, if that is what Jon's mother looked like.

When he makes the mistake of telling her this, she dunks his head in the horses' trough outside. Multiple times. Plus another one for good measure, she tells him. After that she becomes just another annoying girl-thing.

* * *

It is a few moons after he arrives that Starfall finally starts to feel a little like home. He and Allyria are lounging on one of the balconies, teaching Little Ned how to play cyvasse (Jon stifles his sigh as Ned forgets the rules for the third time).

All the same, Jon thinks he might be truly happy.

"Oh, look," Allyria comments suddenly, peering over the balustrade, "The Darkshit has come to visit."

(In hindsight, Jon should have known better).

* * *

A/N: So with very little prompting at all I decided to extend my first drabble. This one has a little more dialogue, but I'm hoping it doesn't change the tone of the fic too much. And yes, the cliffhanger was Gerold Dayne, soz.


	3. Unlocking a Gilded Cage

Sansa doesn't lie to herself. Not anymore. What is the use when she is surrounded by monsters with honeyed smiles and dead promises.

She doesn't lie to herself. So, when she hears true monsters shrieking over the city, reverberating through the castle grounds, when she is herded down into the Great Hall by strange men with iron-tipped spears and blank faces, she readily admits her terror.

All the other courtiers are there as well, many weeping and wailing and not all of them ladies. Sansa's hands are shaking so bad that she has to hold them together under her sleeves, but at least she doesn't caterwaul about.

She takes her place in a Tyrell cluster, dull and lacklustre without Margaery and the Queen of Thorns to direct them. The two in question stand over to the side, whispering and plotting under their breaths, no doubt.

"She's going to kill us all with dragonfire," one of Margaery's annoying cousins whisper, half-choking with tears, "Like she did to our poor King Joffery."

Sansa closes her eyes and smiles. If she does die, at least she can imagine Joffery, screaming as he is burnt to a crumbling pile of ash, as she is burnt too. Or maybe she will poison herself first, like Cersei.

It is then that the colossal doors creak open, sounding of impending doom, and the Dragon Queen enters.

* * *

She does not burn them. She does burn Tywin Lannister, though. Slowly. The outlandish man Margaery tells her is Oberyn Martell watches on, the whole time grinning in utter, maniacal delight – even when the smoke and the screams become too much for most to bear.

Not Sansa, though.

She doesn't dare hope that she might have been forgotten in the chaos. Just as well, too, for within the sennight a tall, grizzled man brings Sansa to Daenerys and the court, and makes her stand before the dais. Sansa looks up into the face of her new queen. She cannot be more than three years older than Sansa's fourteen years, but she sits upon Iron Throne with an ease that Joffery never could have possessed.

A part of her is glad when she looks around to see Tyrion and little Tommen standing to the side, heavily guarded. Maybe they will live. Also up on the dais are Littlefinger and the Spider. Naturally. Sansa wonders if Ser Barristan has told the Dragon Queen what they are.

Daenerys Stormborn raises a brow. "Well, Jorah?"

The court waits with baited breath, vultures hanging in the branches of a rotten tree. Sansa imagines them curious as to whether she will be a plaything for yet another ruler.

"This is the daughter of the Usurper's Dog, Khaleesi," the man responds, head bowing forward. "Sansa Stark. She is heir to the North."

"_Dead_ Dog," the Dragon Queen corrects abruptly. The court breaks into titters, even the Tyrells, already desperate for the favour of their new ruler. Sansa hates her, and she hates the court of King's Landing. But she is used to being powerless and full of hate. Sansa keeps her eyes to the marble floors, and lets the Dragon Queen's cold gaze bore into her.

"This isn't a matter for the open court," Daenerys says eventually, her lilting voice speaking to her Essosi upbringing. She rises, and the court with her.

"Come, Lady Stark."

* * *

Whatever Sansa was expecting, this is not it.

Daenerys dismisses her advisors and guards until it is just them walking the gardens, two girls who were once overlooked scions of ancient Houses.

The silence hangs over them, and Sansa still hasn't decided whether it is threatening or comfortable when the Queen finally speaks, "I am not my father, Sansa Stark."

Sansa pauses, and admits, "No. Neither am I."

It is enough. They resume walking, feet crunching on the gravel beneath them.

They talk of many things after that. Sansa tells the Daenerys of Winterfell in the summertime, of its vast green moors and pudgy direwolf pups and raucous laughter echoing through the hearth-lit Great Hall. Daenerys tells Sansa of a small red door by a lemon tree in Braavos, and of wind whipping across her face as she raced on horseback through the Great Grass Sea.

They speak of powerlessness and the deaths of those they loved most, of tyrants and the burning desire to be free. Most of all, they talk of the future, and their place in it.

Sansa used to daydream, once upon a time, that Jon or Robb would steal into the Keep in the middle of the night and spirit her away, or would arrive at the front of an indomitable, relentless army to take King's Landing and right all wrongs.

It did not take her long to push away such fantasies. But it took her until now to realise that maybe, just maybe, she could free herself instead.

* * *

Jon meets her at the gates of the Red Keep, and for a few moments she can pretend that tragedy never happened to Sansa Stark, that those things happened to another unfortunate girl.

It is the first time she has seen in since before her father was arrested.

"You have to believe that I tried to come and get you. I left as soon as I heard about you and Uncle Ned and Arya and Jory," her cousin's voice breaks, rage making his words come ever more rapidly. "Gerold caught up to me the first time and dragged me back to Starfall. He and Allyria have put a ten-strong guard on me for the past year. Never have I hated two people so –"

"I'm glad you stayed away."

It takes a moment before the words set, and then his brows rise. "_What?_"

She takes his hand, feeling the calluses in his palm that weren't there when they were children, and releases it. She looks back up into his confused violet eyes, and tries to pour the things she cannot say aloud into them. "Jon, if you had come for me, you would have died for it, as Robb would have. As mother did. I'm glad they kept you away, I would have done the same thing in their position."

Jon falls silent, jaw stubbornly jutting out. Sansa imagines he is trying to convince himself of the ways he could have rescued her. She smiles.

Finally he glances back up. "What is she like?"

"The Queen?"

Jon nods. Sansa glances over her shoulder, back toward the Red Keep. Finally she looks back at Jon, and shrugs. "She is merciless, but just. She will be a good Queen. She would have us gladly, should you or I or the Daynes ever decide to return to court."

"Likely not, those dragon and their fire are entirely too close should she change her mind," Jon scoffs, not entirely joking. Sansa knows he is trying to lighten her mood, to make her forget. She thinks his warmth might hurt even more.

Sansa imagines the air heavy with something else as well; the realisation born of dozens of sly comments and whispers and innuendos voiced where Sansa wasn't meant to hear.

"Of course you won't, stupid," she says, forcing an impish smile onto her face, "Dragons don't burn."

It was the one of the last things she said to Jon before he left for Starfall all those years ago. It was another lifetime, really, one of pretend dragon knights and mud and fierce happiness. Sansa wonders if he'll realise that when she says it this time, she is being serious.

But he doesn't. Jon embraces her, holding on so tight that Sansa swears she feels her spine crack. She breathes in, and allows herself feel safe for the first time in more than a year.

"Let's go home."

* * *

Sansa Stark returns a ruin to Winterfell. Coincidently, Winterfell is also a ruin when Sansa Stark returns.

She returns knowing most of the people she grew up with are burnt or buried. She doesn't think she'll be able to face the new additions to the crypts in a long time, and she won't be able to sit on the dais in the Great Hall without seeing the empty seats where her family are meant to be. Theon included, she supposes, though he is dead now too.

But she has Jon by her side (even if only for a little while) and Robb running to greet her from the charred gates of the castle, seemingly outpacing even the fastest of riders.

At this moment, it is enough. Sansa will build her home again from the pieces that remain, and this time she'll guard it viciously until her last breath.

(Little dove, indeed.)


	4. A Melody Begins

**Chapter Summary**

**300 AC: Dany is no longer alone in the world, yet she cannot trust Jon Dayne when he wears the face of a ghost she would rather forget. A direct follow-on from the meeting scene in Chapter 1.**

* * *

It starts from that day in the gardens of the Great Sept of Baelor.

After the Tyrell women happily unload a generation's worth of secrets upon her, Dany spends another hour or so trying not to stare at Ser Jon Dayne, and fails miserably. Her eyes wander without her consent, leading her inevitably back to him. The only person she has, the only person who could understand what it means to be a Targaryen. Yet she is terrified of him meeting her gaze, terrified of the possibility of seeing Viserys there. She eats without thought, though her gut churns, and responds in little more than grunts.

She can tell that the Queen of Thorns is becoming more and more amused with every passing second. It irritates Dany beyond belief.

"You could just talk to the idiot boy."

"If I were to do that, Lady Olenna, I may as well shout the truth from the highest point of the Red Keep for all the Seven Kingdoms to hear," she murmurs her (very well thought out) excuse, eyes still trailing the threat-not-threat that is Jon Dayne.

And it was true as well...in a way. The suspicion Dany would incite by breaking protocol and introducing herself to a suspected Targaryen bastard would be a confirmation in the eyes of all that have heard the rumour. It would add heat to the fire, and would spread till the world is reduced to cinders. It is a bad idea to be talking of it aloud even now.

So the old _vikeesi_ and her exhausting, unsolicited opinions could go drown in a Flea Bottom gutter for all Dany cares.

"Oh that _would_ be a waste, girl," Olenna says, smiling too wide. "Seeing as anyone who matters already suspects the truth. But if that is your intent, please don't let me stop you. After all, you are the Queen. You may do whatever it is you wish, whether it is behaving the raving lunatic on top of a tower or tupping your nephew."

Dany barely smothers her hiss, and leans back in her chair. She needs distance from this. She needs to be able to think with a clear mind. She deliberately ignores the set bait, "Although the better question is, _could _you stop me? After all, I wouldn't wish for you to break a hip in your efforts, my dearest Lady Olenna."

Olenna Tyrell scoffs. "Such honeyed words from such a pretty mouth."

Dany regards her coldly. "I find myself suddenly tired," she says, curt and bordering on rudeness. "Good day."

The High Septon has already directed the court's prayers for the Mother's Day earlier in the morning – so there was no need for Dany to be here beyond politicking. She nods to her Kingsguard, thankfully neither of which today being Loras Tyrell, and sets off on a mission to get herself out of these overly-perfumed, courtier-infested gardens as quickly as possible.

Missandei appears at her side at some point along the way. As one of the highest ranking ladies of Dany's court, it seems the little scribe has her own politicking to do. She has grown in the last years, though, no longer the ten year old who Dany freed from Kraznys mo Nakloz. Soon she will be taller than Dany.

"This one thinks you look in need of rescuing, Your Grace."

"Thank you, gentle heart. I do."

Missandei walks by her side as Dany continues towards the entrance gates of the gardens, weaving around brightly coloured tents and intricately carved tables laden with sumptuous foodstuffs. At first, Dany stops every time yet another influential lord of this or important lady of that approaches. But when it happens for the tenth time, she darkly reminds herself that she took this city and many more like it with blood and dragonfire, and she does not need any godscursed _politeness_.

She stares straight forward, ignoring the courtiers, Missandei acting as her buffer. No one approaches after that.

She is almost free of the gardens, hurtling around corner if its entrance when she collides with a solid wall. But it is not a wall, it is a person. And it is not just any person, but Jon Dayne.

She doesn't meet his eyes. Dany throws up her hand to stop her Kingsguard running him through. "Put your swords away. He is no assassin."

"For all you know, my Queen, I could be," he warns. It's the first time she hears his voice. It's pleasantly deep, and while Common is not her native tongue, she can still hear hints of a Northern accent.

Most important of all, he sounds nothing like Viserys.

Armed with that observation, she gathers the courage to glance up.

From a distance the likeness seems uncanny, but Jon's aquiline nose has been broken at least once, his high cheekbones are set wider on a longer face with a fuller mouth, and his long-lashed eyes are more a shade of the jacaranda tree she had been sitting under previously than her old tormentor's pale lilac ones.

So he looks nothing like Viserys, either. She almost sighs in relief.

It is only then she notices the awkward silence her staring has created. She feels her face redden but sets her jaw none the less, and says as archly as she can, "When colliding with a queen, one generally apologises first before making jokes that could see them on the wrong end of a Kingsguard's sword."

Jon's eyes widen, and before she knows it he is bowing deeply before her. It seems wrong somehow. When he rises, there is a blush staining his cheeks she imagines is a similar shade to hers. "I apologise profusely, your Grace. I am new at court, and am still learning its customs."

She does not think apologising for running into the ruler of the Seven Kingdoms is a particularly hard custom to grasp, but instead of a rebuke she finds herself blurting, "That is understandable, Jon."

And promptly freezes. She has just used his name. Not Ser Jon of House Dayne or even Ser Jon, but Jon. It is the way Dany has come to think of him in the few short hours she has known his name, but to say it aloud and in public is a far a more inappropriate and intimate thing. She hears Missandei tutting under her breath, and Jon brows jump at Dany's informality.

She is not one to believe in gods, but _Seven_ she needs to leave before she makes a larger fool of herself. Dany mutters an undignified farewell, and flees. She doesn't stop until she and Missandei are in the royal carriage awaiting them at the foot of the Great Sept's stairs.

It is only once the carriage starts moving, that that Missandei comments drily, as if reading from one of her ancient tomes, "This one thinks that was not very well done, your Grace."

Dany stops, and stares into Missandei's bright, mocking eyes. They both burst out laughing.

* * *

She makes a list.

(No, not that type of list.)

It is probably the most ridiculous thing she has ever done, and at the most inconvenient of times. She is meant to be leading armies and eradicating the last of the Lannister and Baratheon supporters, putting down plots and protecting her people, and most of all, surviving while doing so. She does not have the energy to spare to spy on a Targaryen bastard, compiling a list of observations about him, even _if_ the bastard in question is her nephew and the sole family that remains to her.

And yet she does.

* * *

**A/N:** I don't usually write Dany as the blushing type, but for the purpose of this AU, her character is a little different. She's achieved everything she's set out to do, no one else she loves has died and she herself is not in immediate danger of dying, and at the end of the day she is a seventeen year old girl who now is faced with peace for the first time in her life.

That being said, I'm drowning in romance clichés and I am 100% having a good time writing them. Someone send help.

Just a note with the story format:

a) I've started using more dialogue-centric writing for the character development ficlets, and constructive criticism is very welcome about the format, the characterisations or anything else, and

b) I've started adding dates to the chapter descriptions. I realised that with using a non-linear format that it may have wound up a bit confusing, so I hope this helps. Also I've decided I like this story a lot, so while it'll still be Jonerys centred, I'll be writing more multi-POV stories etc. in it, although I've yet to decide which characters.


End file.
